Lakewood Cake Shop Refuses Wedding Cake To Gay Couple

LAKEWOOD, Colo. (CBS4) – Chick-fil-A’s president spoke out against gay marriage last week, sparking a huge uproar in the gay community, and now the issue is spilling over to a Colorado bakery.

The owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood refused to bake a wedding cake for a local gay couple and now people are pushing a boycott against the owner.

Shop owner Jack Phillips probably didn’t think he was going to be wading into a civil rights debate a week ago when he told the gay couple that he would not make a cake for their wedding, but that’s exactly what has happened.

Dave Mullin and Charlie Craig say they dated for nearly two years before getting engaged. They went into the Masterpiece Cakeshop thinking they’d spend a full day trying cakes for their ceremony. Instead the meeting lasted a few seconds.

“My first comment was, ‘We’re getting married,’ and he just shut that down immediately,” Craig said.

Mullin and Craig were stunned. They went online and posted their experience on Facebook. The response has been huge.

Dozens of protesters gathered outside the shop on Saturday and were very angry.

It wasn’t the first time the shop turned down gay couples who wanted a cake. Phillips has received more than 1,000 angry messages about his stance.

“If gays come in and want to order birthday cakes or any cakes for any occasion, graduations, or whatever, I have no prejudice against that whatsoever,” Phillips said. “It’s just the wedding cake, not the people, not their lifestyle.”

Jack Phillips (credit: CBS)

“I support local business, I think it’s really important to our community to support local business,” protester Cate Owen said. “If it has to do with discrimination I don’t think we should support it. I think we should want to change their policies. It’s not like we want to shut them down.”

Some customers said they are now ordering cakes at the shop specifically because of the stance against gay marriage.

“We would close down that bakery before we closed our beliefs, so that may be what it comes to … we’ll see,” Phillips said.